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Tuesday, September 6, 2016

We’ll see soon enough on Wentz

From a dramatic standpoint, consider Carson Wentz’s professional
football debut against the Browns Sunday in the regular-season opener in Philadelphia
delicious irony.

Wentz, the quarterback the Eagles thought of enough to trade
up for in the last college draft, will face the team they traded with to get
him.

The Browns owned the second overall selection in the lottery
and practically everyone in the pro football community believed they would grab
one of the two top quarterbacks, Jared Goff or Wentz, to become their
quarterback of the future.

When the Los Angeles Rams traded up and leapfrogged the
Browns into the top spot and took Goff, the Browns decided Wentz wasn’t what
they were looking for and allowed the Eagles to move up to the No. 2 slot and
take him.

It appears as though Wentz, a small college quarterback who
owns a pair of national small college championships, apparently failed the
Browns’ eye test.

So confirmed Browns chef strategy officer (whatever that
means) Paul DePodesta to ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Grossi at the beginning of
training camp in late July on the thinking about trading down after the Rams
selected Goff.

“We have to make judgments on individual players and we’re
not always going to be right,” DePodesta said. “But in this particular case, we
just didn’t feel it was necessarily the right bet to make for us at this time.
. . . We will not always be right on those types of things.”

Later, he went on to say that “in a given year, there might
be two or three NFL-ready quarterbacks at the college level. In another year,
there might be zero. There might not be anybody in that year good enough to be
a top 20 quarterback in the NFL.”

Wentz, at least from the Browns’ standpoint, did not fall
into the NFL-ready category and thus the trade down with the Eagles. It’s all a
matter of evaluation, good, bad or otherwise.

"We didn't draft Carson Wentz because we didn't think it was the right fit for our team at this time," Browns coach Hue jackson told Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio Tuesday. "There's nothing more to it. Obviously, that will make for great debate in the media and that's fine."

The Browns will find out Sunday whether they might have made
a mistake when they get up-close-and-personal look at Wentz. Of course, it will
be only a small sample of what lies ahead for the kid and in no way should be
construed as anything but.

But one can only imagine what is going through Wentz’s mind
right now after a rather interesting training camp and exhibition season. He
rightfully believed his rookie season would be spent learning how to be a
National Football League quarterback behind Sam Bradford.

Then fate – and the Minnesota Vikings – stepped in. Vikings
quarterback Teddy Bridgewater rips up a knee and just like that, the Eagles
ship Bradford to the land of 10,000 lakes in a deal they couldn’t refuse and
Wentz suddenly is thrust center stage.

The Eagles, expected by many experts to challenge the Browns
for the worst record in the NFL this season, are taking a calculated risk by
elevating Wentz so soon. It very well could be looked at as a
what-have-we-got-to-lose situation.

In doing so, though, Wentz could not be any more ill
prepared as any rookie making his pro debut. It’s not as if he has gone through
an entire training camp and exhibition season and displayed talents that made
the Bradford trade possible.

He hasn’t played a game of football since Aug. 11, when he
suffered a hairline fracture of a rib or two in the opening exhibition against
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a game in which he was hit hard numerous times.

His NFL résumé entering Sunday is as follows: Six
possessions, 39 snaps (including three where penalties resulted in no play), 24
passes, 12 completions, 89 yards, no touchdowns, one interception and three
scrambles for 15 yards.

That’s it. His best drive was an 11-play, 71-yarder that
ended with the pick inside the 5-yard line.

Wentz has been recovering from the rib injury since then.
His return was problematic until Monday when Eagles coach Doug Pederson, in the
wake of the Bradford deal, announced the rookie was healthy and would face the
Browns.

There is no question he will be as raw as any quarterback
has ever been in his NFL debut. And you can bet Browns Nation will pay close
attention to how he performs, remembering what their team did – or did not do –
on draft day.

There is no doubt Wentz, the Browns’ snub lurking in the
back of his mind, will be out to prove they made a mistake in not staying put
at No. 2 and taking him. DePodesta and the rest of the Cleveland top brass will be watching.